Author: Edward Hasbrouck

This morning the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) released its final report, recommending that Congress amend the Military Selective Service Act to require that young women, as well as young men, register for the draft when they reach 18 years of age, and inform the Selective Service System each time they change their address until their 26th birthday.

In my testimony to the NCMNPS in April 2019, I told the Commissioners:

Any proposal that includes a compulsory element is a naïve fantasy unless it includes a credible enforcement plan and budget…. How much are you prepared to spend, and how much of a police state are you prepared to set up, to round up the millions of current draft registration law violators or enforce a draft?

The Commission’s recommendations with respect to Selective Service registration are just such a naïve fantasy, completely unfeasible and with no foundation in research or reality. The Commission kept its head firmly in the sand, carefully avoiding any inquiry into whether or how the current (unenforced and widely violated) registration requirement for men, much less an expanded registration requirement applicable also to women, could be enforced.

Continue reading “National Commission Recommends Extending Draft Registration to Women”

This week the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) plans to release its final report including recommendations to Congress on whether Selective Service registration should be ended or extended to young women as well as young men.

Whatever the NCMNPS recommends, the release of its report is unlikely to get much attention this week in the news or from Congress. But it will be one of the most significant events in decades in relation to military conscription, setting the stage for a Congressional debate about the future of the Selective Service System that can no longer be postponed indefinitely in light of ongoing court cases, and that is likely to occur sometime in the next year or so.

Continue reading “Major Announcement Due This Week on the Military Draft”

As Congress prepares to debate the issue of the military draft, anti-draft activists are calling on Congress to enact legislation to end draft registration entirely.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear argument March 3, 2020, in New Orleans in a case in which a Federal District Court judge has already ruled that the current requirement for men to register with the Selective Service System for a possible military draft is unconstitutional. The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) will release its recommendations to Congress regarding the Selective Service System on March 25, 2020.

Both this court case and the report of the NCMNPS are likely to put increased pressure on Congress to choose whether to end draft registration for men, or to extend it to women.

Numerous anti-draft organizations have endorsed H.R. 5492, a bipartisan bill introduced in Congress (and submitted to the NCMNPS for it to consider) in December 2019.

Continue reading “Anti-Draft Activists Call on Congress To End Draft Registration”

Thursday, just before Congress recessed until the new year, U.S. Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Rodney Davis (R-IL) introduced H.R. 5492, a bill “To repeal the Military Selective Service Act, and thereby terminate the registration requirements of such Act and eliminate … the Selective Service System.”

This bill is the most comprehensive anti-draft proposal introduced in Congress since the reinstatement of Selective Service registration in 1980.

Continue reading “Bill Introduced To End Draft Registration”

NPR’s Morning Edition today includes a report by David Welna, possibly the only journalist who sat through all of the two days of hearings on Selective Service at which I testified last month before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, “Selective Service registration comes under fire again."

The NPR story highlights the lack of updates to addresses in the Selective Service System database, and the key testimony by Bernie Rostker, former Director of the SSS, that the current registration database is so inaccurate as to be “worse than useless."

Today’s NPR story is the first mainstream news report on Rostker’s testimony, accuracy of the SSS database, or whether a draft based on the current system would be possible (regardless of whether it is regarded as desirable or who supports or opposes it on political or ideological grounds).

Continue reading “NPR: ‘Selective Service Registration Comes Under Fire Again’”

The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service (NCMNPS) released its interim report and schedule of formal hearings today.

Archived C-SPAN video of news conference announcing report:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Article by Gregory Korte in USA Today
• My analysis of the errors of omission and commission in the report

The Commission was created in 2016 to study and report to Congress and the President on whether registration with the Selective Service System for military conscription (“the draft”) should be ended, extended to young women as well as young men, extended to older women and men with skills in special demand by the military (in health care, computer science, STEM, foreign languages, etc.), or replaced with something else such as compulsory “national service” with both civilian and military options.

The Commission’s goal in its interim report released today is not really to “report” on what it has done, but to set the terms of debate (excluding options like, “Admit that draft registration has failed”), and test the political reaction to some of the proposals the Commission is considering.

For the most part, the report was as expected, including a complete absence of any mention of issues of compliance, enforcement, or feasibility of any compulsory service scheme.

Continue reading “National Commission on Military Service report and hearing schedule”